Is Saudi Arabia Warming Up to Jews?: Elliot Friedland, Clarion Project, Aug. 23, 2016 — Saudi Arabia has long been the hub of the austere form of Sunni Islam known as Wahhabism, and has long perpetuated anti-Semitic stereotypes of Jews in the country’s media.
A Joyous Holiday and a Sad World: Dr. Mordechai Kedar, Arutz Sheva, Sept. 20, 2016 — Two million Muslims will be making the obligatory pilgrimage to Mecca, known as the Hajj, this month, as mandated by the Islamic calendar.
Holy War of Words: Growing Saudi-Iranian Tensions: Simon Henderson, Washington Institute, Sept. 7, 2016 — In the coming days, hundreds of thousands of Muslims will visit the Saudi city of Mecca to partake in the annual Hajj pilgrimage.
Yemen: The War Canada Can’t Afford to Ignore: Elizabeth Renzetti, Globe & Mail, Aug. 26, 2016— Far from the watchful eye of the world’s media, war is ravaging Yemen, killing thousands of civilians, and starving and displacing millions more.
No Saudi Money for American Mosques : Daniel Pipes, The Hill, Aug. 22, 2016
In Saudi Arabia, a Revolution Disguised as Reform: Dennis Ross, Washington Post, Sept. 8, 2016
‘We Misled You’: How the Saudis Are Coming Clean on Funding Terrorism: Zalmay Khalilzad, Politico, Sept. 14, 2016
Hajj Prep: Search Soul, Buy Sturdy Shoes, Pay the Dentist: Diaa Hadid, New York Times, Sept. 9, 2016
IS SAUDI ARABIA WARMING UP TO JEWS?
Elliot Friedland
Clarion Project, Aug. 23, 2016
Saudi Arabia has long been the hub of the austere form of Sunni Islam known as Wahhabism, and has long perpetuated anti-Semitic stereotypes of Jews in the country’s media. For example one sermon broadcast on the official state channel from the Holy Mosque in Mecca said “O God, destroy the tyrant Jews. O God, deal with the Jews and their supporters. O God, destroy them for they are within your power.” But now relations seem to be thawing between Saudi Arabia and Israel and several prominent media personalities have publicly written about changing attitudes towards Jews.
Famous Saudi columnist Saham al-Kahtani wrote that references in the Quran to Jews as being “apes and pigs” could only be taken to refer to the Jews of the time of Muhammed and did not apply to contemporary Jews. Yasser Hijazi, of the influential paper Riyadh, published in the nation’s capital, went further, calling on Muslims to “leave behind their hostility and hatred of Jews” in a piece translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).
Israel’s Channel Two TV, reported on this trend in a recent newscast. Israeli media attributed the change in focus to warming ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia following the Iran Deal over Iran’s nuclear program. “The change in tone in Saudi rhetoric towards Israel comes a year after the signing of the nuclear agreement between Iran and world powers — a deal that leaves Riyadh concerned over its position in the Middle East — and as Tehran’s proxies in Syria and Lebanon are holding their ground in the Syrian civil war,” The Times of Israel wrote. The Times of Israel cited a July delegation to Israel of academics and businessmen headed by a retired Saudi general as further evidence of warming ties. The delegation met with Israeli Foreign Ministry Director-General Dore Gold and other senior military and political officials, as well as with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
Over the last few years there have been subtle changes in Saudi Arabia’s position that may indicate a gradual shift towards a less anti-Semitic policy. In 2013, an assistant professor at King Saud University in Riyadh published an article praising Israel’s democracy and explaining that Arab youth was unaware that in Israel many young people “strongly believe that Israel’s stability is conditional upon its coexistence with the Arabs.” She also condemned Israel’s policies towards the Palestinians in the piece and condemned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Yet in a heavily-censored country like Saudi Arabia writing anything remotely praiseworthy about Israel is fraught with peril, so it condemning the “occupation” is pretty much essential if discussing the topic at all.
In December 2014 the Saudi Labor Ministry said Jews would be permitted to work in Saudi Arabia, provided they were not Israeli citizens. “We bar entry [into Saudi Arabia] only to those with Israeli citizenship. Other than that, we are open to most nationalities and religions,” an unnamed government source told Saudi daily Al-Watan in a report translated by MEMRI. “For example, if a worker is a citizen of Yemen but practices Judaism, the [Saudi] Embassy [in Yemen] would not object to issuing him a work visa for the kingdom.”
The Saudi Labor Ministry later issued an ambiguous statement denying the reports saying that while new forms do allow those applying for a visa to list Judaism as a faith, the government has not made an official decision to allow the employment of Jews in the country. This disconnect can perhaps be explained by the difference between the public and private dealings of the Saudi state. The July visit of the Saudi delegation to Israel was officially not coordinated with the royal family and participants did not visit any Israeli governmental institutions, rather, they conducted their meetings in hotels. Similarly media attention to the employment of Jews in Saudi Arabia may have prompted an official denial, while in practice some Jews are able to obtain visas to travel and work in Saudi Arabia with no problems.
Saudi Arabia is a long way from supporting equality for all faiths equally and becoming a liberal state instead of a theocratic monarchy. Yet any progress is to be welcomed and change takes time. In the aftermath of the Arab Spring it is worth considering that the violent overthrow of states has so far failed to bring liberalism to the Middle East. Perhaps supporting gradual change as fought for by liberals within Middle-Eastern societies is more likely to yield tangible and largely bloodless positive results.
A JOYOUS HOLIDAY AND A SAD WORLD
Dr. Mordechai Kedar
Arutz Sheva, Sept. 20, 2016
Two million Muslims will be making the obligatory pilgrimage to Mecca, known as the Hajj, this month, as mandated by the Islamic calendar. The Hajj is one of the five basic pillars of Islam, a commandment that every Muslim must fulfill at least once in his lifetime. Muslims from all over the Islamic world come to the Hajj, differing in appearance, skin color, language, dress, culture and customs, but all take part in rituals performed according to the stringent dictates originating in the Hannibal code of law as interpreted by the Wahhabi Saudi regime.
The Hajj symbolizes the ingathering of all Muslims to “The House of Allah,” as well as the love and affection that are expected to reign between Muslims and the happiness that unites them in their joint dedication to the service of Allah. The robe worn by the pilgrims – the “ihram” – a white sheath without pockets – signifies the modesty that man must show when coming to the home of his Lord and the absence of pockets proves that all belongs to Allah, that man’s property is worth nothing, is temporary and perishable at best. The fact that the robes are identical and worn by all symbolizes that all are equal before Allah, rich and poor, king and servant, honored and despised. The pristine color of the ihram expresses the forgiveness for transgressions that takes place at the Hajj where every man who repents is cleansed of his sins.
The Hajj is an wrenching emotional experience, the most massive assembly in the world. The intensive and crowded meeting with Muslims from a myriad of different cultures, the religious rituals, the speeches and prayers, all turn the Hajj into an ecstatic experience that creates a feeling that believers cannot achieve in other places or occasions. Pilgrims return from the Hajj with glowing eyes, veins suffused with religious adrenaline, heightened religious fervor and renewed and intense loyalty to Allah.
For most of those who return from the Hajj, this heightened religious fervor is expressed in adherence to the behaviors that are central to Islam: five prayers a day, fasting during Ramadan charity to the poor, modest dress, proper behavior and speech, avoidance of sins and transgressions and better relations with family and surroundings. Some of those returning from the Hajj interpret their heightened religious intensity as a reason to turn to Jihad, not only against the evil inclination within man’s soul but against infidels as well. And thus, not a small number of the Jihadists fighting in various areas were drawn in by representatives of terror groups who come to the Hajj in order to meet those most vulnerable to their efforts.
A massive gathering in an average-sized city like Mecca causes acute safety dangers because of the extreme crowding due to the fact that everyone has to perform the same rites at the same time and on the same day. The Saudi royal household invests enormous sums to build an infrastructure that will allow the crowds to perform the rituals safely, and builds bridges, lanes, passages, sidewalks and roads that create a secure environment for the millions who come to the Hajj.
The Saudi king calls himself “Guardian of the Holy Sites” in order to bestow religious sanctity on himself and his regime. This is the reason he feels responsible for arranging the Hajj so that it is safe. The Saudis build thousands of air conditioned tents for the pilgrims, and provide them with tens of thousands of sheep so that they can celebrate “Id Al Adha” – the “festival of the offering” that follows the Hajj. Sometimes, however, there are slip-ups and misunderstandings, and when two groups, each consisting of tens of thousands of people march towards each other by mistake, the tragic result is that many of them lie trampled underfoot and that many lives are lost in the resulting stampede.
Last year a crane fell over and killed tens of people, but the worst part of the accident was the altercation between the Saudi police and the Iranian pilgrims which left many of the Iranians dead. The pilgrims from Iran are Shiites and the Saudis suspect them of attempting to perform rituals according to Shiite tradition, in direct opposition to Sunni Islamic principles – and certainly to the Wahhabi version of those rites. In past years there were other altercations between Iranian pilgrims and Saudi police, so that this is nothing new.
This year the dispute between Iran and the Saudis started anew as they rehashed the arguments over the accidents that occurred in previous years until the anger of both sides reached such a frenzy that the Mufti of Saudi Arabia declared Khamenei – the Supreme Ayatollah of Shiite Iran – an “Amgushi,” that is, not a Muslim, a heretic, a follower of the pre-Islamic Persian religion disguised as a Muslim. There is no more insulting epithet in the Muslim dictionary than the word “Amgushi.” As a result, Khamenei decided to move the Hajj this year from Mecca to Karbala, the Iraqi city closest to Mecca. In the year 680 C.E., Hussein Ibn Ali the leader of the Shiite rebels, was murdered and beheaded there by a military unit of the Sunni Umayyad Caliph Yazid ibn Muawiyah…
This rift over the Hajj is just another aspect of the war between the Saudis and the Iranians in Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, and in my estimation we are approaching the day when rockets are going to be flying through the air from Iran to Saudi Arabia and vice versa. This will be a disastrous development for the entire world because these two powers have both called on the ultimate player to help them, Allah, and both sides claim they are fighting for him and in his name. This kind of situation leads to a frenzy with which the world cannot cope, because no earthly or human considerations can put an end to a war that Allah wages against the infidel.
Economic considerations, oil infrastructure, loss of lives and damage to other countries do not have the slightest effect on Allah and his armies, and if – Heaven forfend – a real war breaks out between Saudi Arabia and Iran it will be a war to the bitter end using chemical and biological weapons. If one of the sides has atomic weapons, it is quite possible that they will be employed. I am stressing this point because both Saudi Arabia and Iran can get their hands on nuclear weapons, Iran has developed its own and the Saudis have acquired them from Pakistan. World leaders, especially those who gave their support to easing the sanctions on Iran and allowed that country to advance its military nuclear projects and continue to develop its missile arsenal, will have to answer for the decisions they made that may bring the Middle East and possibly other parts of the world to the point of no return on the road leading straight to hell.
And that is how the Hajj, the holiday that is meant to bring humankind closer to God and to a life spent under his protective shadow, may bring the Saudis, Iranians and perhaps other countries to their deaths under the shadow of a horrendous mushroom cloud. A culture whose concepts range from “cursed tree” to “Amgushi” and which incorporates all-powerful Allah in its ranks, might find it perfectly acceptable to destroy a world that was built by mankind and for mankind, using concepts taken from the world of mankind. Don’t say you haven’t been warned.
HOLY WAR OF WORDS: GROWING SAUDI-IRANIAN TENSIONS
Simon Henderson
Washington Institute, Sept. 7, 2016
In the coming days, hundreds of thousands of Muslims will visit the Saudi city of Mecca to partake in the annual Hajj pilgrimage. Unlike last year, there will be no Iranians there. Tehran and Riyadh were unable to agree on visa allocations and security arrangements intended to avoid the type of tragic stampede that killed hundreds of pilgrims last time around — an incident in which Iran suffered more victims than any other country. Two days ago, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei declared that Iranians who were injured last year and subsequently died were "murdered" by the kingdom's inadequate emergency response. He went on to suggest that Saudi Arabia was not a proper custodian of the holy places — effectively a direct challenge to the legitimacy of the kingdom's Sunni royal family, since the monarch has been styled "Custodian of the Two Holy Places of Mecca and Medina" since the 1980s.
Khamenei's words prompted a damning response yesterday from the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, the country's chief cleric, who described Iran's Shiite majority as "Zoroastrians" and "not Muslims." Anti-Shiite sentiment is common in Saudi Arabia, and the "Zoroastrian" jibe (meaning fire worshippers) is sometimes mentioned in the press. But the very public use of such words by a mainstream religious leader is extraordinary — though hardly surprising given Khamenei's comments.
The verbal escalation did not stop there: a few hours later, Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif entered the fray, tweeting about the "bigoted extremism that Wahhabi top cleric & Saudi terror masters preach." This was no doubt a direct response to the Grand Mufti (since the Saudi brand of Islam is often labeled "Wahhabism"), and a reiteration of the longstanding Iranian claim that Riyadh supports the Islamic State terrorist group. The situation is arguably as bad as it was in 1987, when Iranian pilgrims in Mecca shouted political slogans that prompted trigger-happy Saudi National Guard forces to open fire, killing scores. Even without Iranians in Mecca this year, the risk of further escalation between the two countries is high.
In this regard, a key decisionmaker on the Saudi side will be Deputy Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman, who will likely favor a resolute rather than conciliatory approach. As defense minister, he has been the main proponent of the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen, which was prompted by Iranian support for the Houthi rebels. That campaign is now a proxy war between the two countries, as are the struggles in Iraq, Syria, and, to a more limited extent, Bahrain. Saudi Arabia's own Shiite minority, concentrated in the oil-rich Eastern Province adjacent to Bahrain and the headquarters of the U.S. Fifth Fleet, will likely be inflamed by the war of words, and miscalculation is possible, even direct military clashes. In light of this danger, the international community — collectively and individually — should urge both sides to calm the rhetoric.
At the very least, the tension represents a setback for U.S. policy, since the Obama administration had hoped that such animosity would be reduced at least somewhat by last year's nuclear agreement with Iran. In a January 2014 interview with the New Yorker, the president stated, "It would be profoundly in the interest of citizens throughout the region if Sunnis and Shias weren't intent on killing each other"; he also expressed his hope of "an equilibrium developing between Sunni, or predominantly Sunni, Gulf states and Iran in which there's competition, perhaps suspicion, but not an active or proxy warfare."
Part of the challenge of quieting the situation is coping with the apparent belief in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab states that the Obama administration favors Iran. The president's April interview with the Atlantic caused considerable surprise in Riyadh and other capitals, particularly when he stated, "The competition between the Saudis and the Iranians…requires us to say to our friends as well as to the Iranians that they need to find an effective way to share the neighborhood and institute some sort of cold peace." Four months prior, Saudi Arabia had broken off diplomatic relations with Iran after its embassy in Tehran was gutted — an incident that followed the kingdom's execution of a leading Saudi Shiite preacher.
Given recent reports of aggressive maneuvering by Iranian Revolutionary Guard naval units in the Gulf, a confrontation with U.S. forces is also possible. Accordingly, Washington's response to the spike in tensions should combine diplomatic and military components — for example, dispatching Secretary of State Kerry or another senior official to the kingdom while visibly reinforcing the Fifth Fleet. America's allies in the region will be hoping for nothing less. Without a significant U.S. response, Saudi Arabia will likely be tempted to consider a more independent and perhaps dangerous course of action.
YEMEN: THE WAR CANADA CAN’T AFFORD TO IGNORE
Elizabeth Renzetti
Globe & Mail, Aug. 26, 2016
Far from the watchful eye of the world’s media, war is ravaging Yemen, killing thousands of civilians, and starving and displacing millions more. This brutal conflict should be in the spotlight, especially in countries that supply arms to Saudi Arabia, which leads the coalition accused of causing most of the civilian deaths. Countries such as Canada.
This year, the Liberal government approved $15-billion in sales of light-armoured vehicles (LAVs) to the Saudi kingdom, a sale that gave this country the dubious honour of being the second-greatest exporter of arms to the Middle East, The Globe and Mail’s Steven Chase reported in June. Earlier versions of Canadian-made LAVS seem to have been used in the war against Houthi rebels in Yemen, The Globe reported in February. Human-rights groups protested against the sale, but otherwise there has been little public outcry.
The government’s argument for selling the combat vehicles to a country with an abysmal human-rights record boiled down to, “it creates jobs,” and “if we don’t, someone else will.” Those are lousy arguments for a country aiming to be a leader in global freedom and progress. The Saudi-led Arab coalition’s air strikes are responsible for the majority of the 3,800 civilian deaths in Yemen in the past 18 months, according to a new report from the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights released Thursday.
The Saudis’ enemies, the Shia Houthi rebels and their allies backing the deposed president Ali Abdullah Saleh, are also responsible for atrocities, possibly including the use of land mines. Cluster bombs are landing on civilian targets. Children are being recruited into militias. An entire country is running out of medication and food. The war in Yemen is said to be a proxy war that Saudi Arabia is waging with Iran through the Houthi militia, but there’s nothing proxy about a bomb landing on a wedding celebration. “The resilience of the Yemeni people has been stretched beyond human limits,” the UN report warns. It calls for an independent report into the civilian devastation, which may be cold comfort to the people who are being bombed in marketplaces, schools, factories and hospitals.
A ceasefire ended in early August, which has caused the destruction to increase again. Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) recently withdrew its staff from six hospitals in northern Yemen, after a devastating hospital bombing on Aug. 15 killed 19 and injured 24. MSF said it gave the GPS co-ordinates of its facilities to the warring parties. Announcing its pullout from the region, the medical aid group said: “MSF is neither satisfied nor reassured by the Saudi-led coalition’s statement that this attack was a mistake.” At the same time, it’s hard to know the exact scope of the destruction, considering how lethal it is for journalists to operate in Yemen. It’s extremely difficult for foreign reporters to gain access to the country, and local journalists have been killed, harassed, kidnapped and imprisoned.
John Kerry, the U.S. Secretary of State, was in Jeddah this week for “peace talks” with Saudi officials, even as his government is selling billions of dollars worth of arms to Saudi Arabia. The most recent deal, $1.15-billion (U.S.) in tanks and other arms, was approved earlier this month, though a small group of U.S. lawmakers is trying to delay the sale until Congress can study it further. The Obama administration has approved $110-billion in arms sales to Saudi Arabia in the past six years, New York University professor Mohamad Bazzi recently wrote in The Nation, part of a complicated geopolitical dance to balance interests in the region. “The United States is complicit in this carnage,” The New York Times wrote in an editorial about the war in Yemen this week.
If the United States is the No. 1 supplier of arms to the Middle East, Canada is now No.2, according to figures compiled by the defence-industry publisher IHS Jane’s…Canada is not in the same weapons-dealing class as the United States, which supplies Saudi Arabia with helicopters, missiles and arms. However, the Canadian government has diluted the language around arms-export controls to make them less sensitive to human-rights concerns and more attuned to commercial interests. All of this should raise alarm bells, or at least spark interest in knowing more about this country’s arms-export deals. Unfortunately, the war in Yemen is grinding and complicated and far, far away. An entire population will pay the price for the world looking the other way.
No Saudi Money for American Mosques : Daniel Pipes, The Hill, Aug. 22, 2016 —Saudi Arabia may be the country in the world most different from the United States, especially where religion is concerned. An important new bill introduced by Rep. Dave Brat (R-Va.) aims to take a step toward fixing a monumental imbalance.
In Saudi Arabia, a Revolution Disguised as Reform: Dennis Ross, Washington Post, Sept. 8, 2016 —Today, it’s hard to be optimistic about anything in the Middle East. And yet having just visited Saudi Arabia, in which I led a small bipartisan group of former national security officials, I came away feeling hopeful about the kingdom’s future.
‘We Misled You’: How the Saudis Are Coming Clean on Funding Terrorism: Zalmay Khalilzad, Politico, Sept. 14, 2016 —On my most recent trip to Saudi Arabia, I was greeted with a startling confession. In the past, when we raised the issue of funding Islamic extremists with the Saudis, all we got were denials. This time, in the course of meetings with King Salman, Crown Prince Nayef, Deputy Crown Mohammad Bin Salman and several ministers, one top Saudi official admitted to me, “We misled you.”
Hajj Prep: Search Soul, Buy Sturdy Shoes, Pay the Dentist: Diaa Hadid, New York Times, Sept. 9, 2016 —My father was on the phone from Australia, giving gravely voiced advice on preparing for the hajj, the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca. “Have you paid the dentist?” he asked. “He ruined my teeth!” I shrieked. “No matter, Baba,” he said, using an Arabic endearment. “This is the hajj. You have to clear your debts, even if you don’t think they are fair.”
